Disposal of used tritium sights!!!

I have a pistol that I need to change out the sights on. These are Meprolite night sights.
Here's my rub. The sights contain Tritium, which is licenced material regulated by the NRC. I can't just throw them away because that would constitute a release into the environment, which could net me hefty fines and possibly jail time!!! :what:

How do I get rid of these little suckers??

The only thing I can think of is to return them to the manufacturer.
I'm not sure they can/would accept them!!
Any other ideas??

Take the gun to the gunsmith and have him put new sites on and disgard the old ones.

contact meprolite, i bet they might be able to help you out.

good job on being environmentally aware!

swallow them

Licensing and regulation by the NRC applies only to manufacturers and distributors of tritium-containing items such as night sights, not to end user consumers. The sights contain a miniscule amount of tritium (around 0.05 Curie) which is, by the way, a naturally occurring substance. If it were me, I'd put them in a plastic bag and dispose of them in the trash.

I think watches have significantly more tritium than night sights. No worries about disposing those.

I wouldn't hesitate in just chucking them in the garbage.

If that's the case, then a whole lot of people are going to prison for throwing old smoke detectors in the trash...

Put them in the trash.

Tritium is already in things that we put into the trash. It would be in even more things if the government changed the law on what you can and cannot use it in. In such small amounts it's not harmful to the environment or humans. It isn't strong enough to penetrate human skin. It is actually produced naturally as well so it does exist in the environment already. I wouldn't recommend inhaling any of it or ingesting it though....of course. Don't order the tritium sandwich. Even though it looks cool it doesn't taste very good.

Tritium sandwich? Can't-----breathe-----laughing----too------hard-----:D

Seriously; call Meprolite and ask them. They'll know if there's a hazardous materials problem or not.

Springmom

Put them in the trash.
DONT DO IT!

Sell them on EBay and get about half your money back. :D

I've sold all the ones I swapped out on there. Average price for the set, $40.

Thanks for the replies folks!!

My concern came from the almost constant indoctrination I received when I worked at a nuc power plant. They were almost paranoid beyond belief about tritium!! In fact, they spent an ungodly amount of money searching, testing, researching and retesting one of the units all because they THOUGHT there was a small tritium leak!

Anything that gave more than one or two clicks on a Geiger counter got shipped off to the spent fuel pool to eventually get encased in leaded concrete!!

Send them to me and I'll try to figure out how to install them on my Tokarev. Glowing or not they'll be better than the factory commie sights:D

swallow them

Hahaha! Take 2 mepros and call me in the morning.

I'd sell them on ebay. Some airsofters will buy them for $40.

I say stick them in suppositories and send to a Anti-Gunner Organization Big Shot...

I bet when they were new they were too weak to make a GC/GMT tick.
As isotopes go tritium is a pretty piss poor beta emitter IIRC.

I feel pretty sure that as a consumer product a new set of tritium sites represents a very minor health threat even if you break the capsules i.e. wash with soap and water and keep you hands out of your month.

Half-life is 12 years so by the time they start digging into any landfill those sigths end up in they will be decayed.

Best

S-

They were almost paranoid beyond belief about tritium!! In fact, they spent an ungodly amount of money searching, testing, researching and retesting one of the units all because they THOUGHT there was a small tritium leak

Well, from what I know about nukes, which I'll admit is limited, Tritium is the element best suited for accelerating a reaction into the themo-nuclear range. Should the power-plant have a reaction go awry, any tritium introduced to the reaction would accelerate the instability, making recovery almost impossible.
More than likely even small amounts of tritium set off (or confuse) the radiation detectors, making it more difficult to sense a miniscule reactor leak. A paranoia about Tritium is probably healthy in such an environment.

But I'm no nuclear engineer.

I feel pretty sure that as a consumer product a new set of tritium sites represents a very minor health threat even if you break the capsules i.e. wash with soap and water and keep you hands out of your month
And drink lots of beer. :D Seriously, I've heard someone say that you're supposed to drink lots of beer to flush the system and work the liver up a bit to help against the exposure. Not that I need a reason to drink beer anyway.

I'm sure the city or the county you're in hold household hazardous waste collection events or maybe even have a fixed facility. They usually have provisions for handling rad waste such as smoke detectors, etc.

Send it over to IRAN, they are looking for that sort of material - so they can send it back to us :fire:

You can safely toss them in the trash. If a gunsmith replaces your sights, that's probably what he will do.

If by chance, all 3 tubes of tritium happen to break at once, and you are close to the accident that caused the breakage, and you happen to breathe in all of the tritium contained in the 3 tubes, you would receive a radiation dosage approximately equivalent to a single dental x-ray.

Tritium, as most know, is an isotope of hydrogen. When released, it will rapidly be diffused and dispersed in the atmosphere. Within minutes you would be hard pressed to detect the fact that there was ever any tritium in the area.

No need to wash your hands unless for other reasons. Tritium won't be absorbed by the skin or remain on the skin.

As a side note, the disposal of some smoke detectors is a different issue. They contain an alpha particle emitter, often Americium. Even in miniscule amounts an alpha emitter is far more dangerous when ingested than a beta emitter such as tritium. A smoke detector containing a radioactive isotope will be so labeled and it should be handled as hazardous waste.

Thanks Mal,
I already knew about the tritium.
I was concerned about the regulatory hassles involved.
The last thing I need is the EPA breathing down my neck!!

swallow them

OMG! I just spit milk out my nose! You could send them to me, I'm always down for some radioactive fun! :neener:

Send it over to IRAN, they are looking for that sort of material

Touche`, tritium is used in thermonuclear weapons.

Tritium is a beta emitter, releasing 5.7 keV electrons.
They are harmless outside the body (cannot even penetrate skin) but if inhaled are a hazard. There is nothing to protect the lungs from the radiation.
This is the reason many radioactive items are a real problem if inhaled or ingested.
Tritium is difficult to confine and its release would mark a leak in a nuclear plant.
It is not a big threat, but its presence indicates other problems are propbaly present.

Well, from what I know about nukes, which I'll admit is limited, Tritium is the element best suited for accelerating a reaction into the themo-nuclear range. Should the power-plant have a reaction go awry, any tritium introduced to the reaction would accelerate the instability, making recovery almost impossible.
More than likely even small amounts of tritium set off (or confuse) the radiation detectors, making it more difficult to sense a miniscule reactor leak. A paranoia about Tritium is probably healthy in such an environment.

But I'm no nuclear engineer.

Tritium introduced into a nuclear reactor would do nothing. Intense pressure and heat concentrated in a single spot (like what is caused in a sustained, uncontrolled nuclear reaction created in a nuclear bomb) is what causes tritium and deuterium to fuse. The pressures and temperatures seen in a nuclear reactor (even in a runaway reaction like Chernobyl) couldn't hope to set off a fusion reaction.

Tritium sights are exempt from nuclear regulations because of such tiny quantities.
My Trijicon Reflex II sight reads:
"Trijicon Reflex contains tritium. The purchaser is exempt from any regulatory responsibility."

eBay them or send them to a willing 3rd party. They would be good sites for my TT33 ;)

It is interesting to see that I am not the only Nuke guy around here...There are some very good and technically correct answers in this thread.

I didn't want to get all tecnical, but I did once hold a TDG, which is a certificate for Transporting Dangerous Goods, used to work in the oil industry, we had all kinds of fun stuff, hundreds of batteries, explosives, radioactive sources for pipe inspection... the certificate was required for the job...

Plus the safety videos are quite funny... never stand over the hole when the shot is fired.. that was a good one!

Plus the safety videos are quite funny... never stand over the hole when the shot is fired.. that was a good one!

The sad part is the video was probably made because someone did it :what: